Claims of Disguise and Intrigue in the World of Sporting Goods

There’s a distribution war going on in the retail business, and Dick’s Sporting Goods is accusing a competitor of fighting dirty.

The sporting goods chain accused Mitchell Modell, chief executive of smaller rival Modell’s, of disguising himself as a Dick’s executive and going undercover in its stores.

In a lawsuit filed last month, Dick’s alleges that Modell snuck into the back room at a Princeton store to obtain confidential information, including how the company uses its store to fulfill online orders, the Bergen Record reported last week. The Record also pointed out that Modell was featured in a 2012 episode of “Undercover Boss,” where he shaved his head, donned a handlebar mustache and posed as a store employee.

We got hold of the lawsuit and have embedded at the bottom of this post. It highlights the intense fight retailers are waging to figure out how to use their stores more efficiently and better compete with online retailers like Amazon.com.

Dick’s says it has “gone to great lengths to prevent competitors from obtaining nonpublic information concerning its operations,” including “the specific manner in which Dick’s executes at the store level on its Omni-channel initiatives such as ‘Ship From Store Fulfillment,” according to the lawsuit.

A Modell’s spokesman said the company is aware of the suit but declined to comment further. Dick’s didn’t respond to request for comment.

The lawsuit alleges that Modell and “an unidentified woman” went into a Dick’s store in Princeton, N.J., last month and claimed to have an appointment with Dick’s CEO Edward Stack. Modell falsely identified himself as a senior vice president at Dick’s, “using the name ‘Joseph’ and a garbled last name,” according to the lawsuit.

While walking around the store with a sales manager, the lawsuit alleges that Modell was able to glean information on shipping methods and inventory numbers. He also gained access to the store’s nonpublic areas, where it keeps extra inventory and where employees package orders to online customers, according to the lawsuit.